


The Same Place I’ll Always Land

by dewfast_dewfurious



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Domestic Fluff, Drunk Driving, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Drinking, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, M/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Smoking, Suicidal Thoughts, chosen family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:00:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24208603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dewfast_dewfurious/pseuds/dewfast_dewfurious
Summary: Failure had been the predominant constant in Shane's life for so long that he almost didn’t notice there had been something else steadily building its influence on him for years now.(Shane healing and coming to trust himself to become Jas's primary caregiver as her parents had wished, because it makes me feel sad things that Jas doesn't move into the farmhouse with Shane when he marries the player character.) :)
Relationships: Jas & Marnie & Shane (Stardew Valley), Jas & Shane (Stardew Valley), Shane/Male Player (Stardew Valley)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 86





	1. Jas

_Winter, Year Four_

Shane could see his breath as he shuffled between the pizza place’s back entrance and his car, trying not to bite it on any hidden patches of ice. He tossed the pizza box he had nabbed from an order that had been sent back onto the passenger seat and climbed into his car, the frame creaking as he sunk in. Shane cranked down the window and lit a cigarette before coaxing the engine to start up to make the ten-minute drive to Amanda’s apartment.

As soon as he knocked on the door to announce his arrival, he heard the thundering of tiny feet barreling towards the door. Shane let himself in with his duplicate key as Jas raced toward him.

“Shane!” Jas bounced, launching herself at his knees.

“ _Oof_ , hey Jas.” He set the pizza box down on the kitchen table so he could turn his full attention to Jas.

“Look!!” She held up a folded piece of pink construction paper in her tiny fist, “I made this for YOU!” She beamed. Shane took the paper.

“For me? Can I open it?”

“Open it!” She jumped up and down. He did; inside was a barely legible note written in a blue glitter crayon:

_I LOVE YOU SHANE_

The words ran into each other and some of the letters were backwards. Shane’s heart skipped a beat and then an ache spread from its center. He wished he could be remotely as good a person as this tiny kid thought he was. He scooped her into his arms, ignoring the protests from his back and knees.

“Wow, Jas, you made this?”

“Yes, I did.” She said, matter-of-factly, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“I keep telling your mom you’re some kind of genius, looks like I was right.”

“Mama helped me."

“Well, I’m impressed. And, I love you too, Jas.”

She beamed back at him. He finally was no longer able to ignore the pain radiating from his lower spine and set Jas back on the ground.

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“Yes,” Shane heard Amanda call from Jas’s room. “We were just getting into pajamas, right, Jas?”

“Nuh-uh,” Jas pouted.

“Well, I dunno, it might be too late, but… if you were super-sonic speedy, I _might_ have time to read you a story. Do you think it’s too late already ‘Manda?” He asked conspiratorially.

Amanda leaned against the doorway, looking down at Jas.

“Hmm, I’m not sure Jas could be _that_ fast.”

“I can! I can!” Jas protested, and ran into the bedroom. Amanda followed, winking exaggeratedly at Shane.

“All right, I’ll go pick out a story, just in case you make it,” Shane called.

Once Jas had finally dozed off, they snuck out of her room and sat out on the balcony, tearing into the pizza.

“That’s a pretty cute kid you got there, you know?” Shane mused, mouth full.

“Well, she’s got my genes, so, obviously.” Amanda tossed her uneaten crust back into the box and Shane rescued it, adding it to his plate. “You know, you really would make a good dad someday.”

Shane snorted, “Hah, _nooo_ way. Amanda. You know I have never wanted a kid and I am never having a kid.”

“Why not, though, Shane? You’re so good with Jas.”

“Well, for one thing, that is _not_ the same as having one of those all the time, and second, I would one hundred percent fuck a kid up – I can’t even get my own self straight, let alone put myself in charge of someone else’s entire life.”

“Yeah, I know you say that, but, I think that’s all in your head.” 

Amanda looked pensive and serious. She knew Shane too well for this conversation to be about him having kids someday.

“Okay, so what’s really up?” he pried.

“Oh, um… I don’t know…” She pulled her knees to her chest, looking up at the clouded night sky. “I guess I just get paranoid this time of year… like, if something happened to me, too, you know?”

Oh. Damn. Shane had really forgotten the date for the entire fucking day. He could really be a grade-A jackass sometimes.

“Sorry, Amanda, jeez, I totally forgot.” How braindead was he to forget the anniversary of the death of one of his two best friends after only three years?

“Really, Shane?” She, rightfully, was looking at him incredulously.

“God, I know, I feel like a piece of shit now, okay?”

Amanda sighed. “Okay, I know, sorry.”

“How are you doing, though?” Shane ventured.

“Getting through. Sometimes it seems like it gets easier and then there’s days when it seems like no time has passed at all.”

They sat in silence in the freezing winter air, both looking out into the night.

“Man, I miss that guy,” Shane said, breaking the silence.

She laughed humorlessly. “Me too, Shane.”

He turned back to Amanda.

“You know, nothing’s going to happen to you, right?” She looked like she was going to argue, so he continued, “But if it did, I would do literally everything I could to take care of Jas right, okay? I would fucking die for that kid.”

“Except don’t ‘cause you’d be the last adult standing.”

“Yeah, whatever, you know what I mean. Anyway, all this is pointless – we all know there’s zero percent chance of me outliving you.”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “God, Shane, stop being emo for like five minutes and go to therapy like a normal fucking human being.”

Shane exhaled. “Yeah guess it’s not cute anymore when you’re almost thirty, huh?” He grabbed the last piece of pizza and picked up the empty box, taking it inside to throw in the trash.

“It was never cute, Shane,” Amanda called after him.

Shane turned around, teasing back at her, “Aw, come on, you love me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he heard her reply under her breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to make the first chapter only fluffy, but then this came out oops…


	2. Amanda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific chapter tags: OUI/drunk driving, suicidal ideation, character death, alcoholism, alcohol use.

_Fall, Year Five_

Shane was awoken by sunlight hitting his face. The familiar feeling of his head pounding and the stale taste in mouth were the next sensations to hit him. Shane scrubbed his eyes and looked at the time on his phone. 1:27pm. He was awake pretty early today. He sat up, and for the dozenth or so time, had to remember why he was on a couch, and why he wasn’t waking up in his own apartment.

Oh yeah.

The icy feeling at the pit of his stomach came rushing back. He’d made it a whole thirty seconds or so today without having to be reminded of everything that happened. It was always the best part of his day, no matter the state of the rest of himself when he woke up. The brief moments he got before realizing everything had turned upside down. Yes, now he recalled: he was a loser. Amanda was dead. He’d lost everything in his life and he was in the process of losing everything in hers, too.

The light was still burning into his retinas, so he dragged himself up: a commitment to actually doing something today. He was still wearing one shoe, and kicked it off as he shuffled over to the fridge to assess its contents. There was only one six-pack left, which was kept company by a bottle of ketchup and a few takeout containers. But the freezer was well stocked for the next few days at least; he wouldn’t even need to go to the store yet if he weren’t running low on beer. He pulled a can from the fridge and cracked it open, downing about half of it in one go – hey, if he was going to actually get anything done today, he was going to need a little help.

He went downstairs to check the mail, unlocking Amanda’s pigeonhole and pulling out the stacks of envelopes and fliers. It had been a few days since he’d done this, clearly. As he punched the floor number on the elevator, he flipped through the mail. Not dealing with that right now; junk; nope, not dealing with that either; junk; junk; hmm, new Chinese restaurant menu? He’d save that one. He continued flipping until he got to a little envelope with a Pelican Town return address handwritten in a familiar script. The elevator ding reverberated around in his head and he let himself back into Amanda’s apartment, tearing open the envelope that had caught his interest.

It was a letter on pink stationery, with little cartoon flowers with bright smiley faces in each corner. He downed the rest of the beer and read, in his Aunt Marnie’s handwriting:

_Dear Shane,_

_This is Jas, Aunt Marnie is just helping me write it. I miss you. I like living on the farm with Aunt Marnie. When are you coming to visit?_

_Love from Jas._

_PS: There are still chickens here._

Jas had signed her name at the bottom herself. Shane stared at the letter, and couldn’t stop tears from welling up as he reread it a few times. He set it on the table next to the other mail and pulled the remainder of the six-pack from the fridge. He sank into the couch and scrubbed his eyes, starting on beer number two.

He didn’t deserve to have such a good kid in his life. And she deserved better than to be missing a fuck-up like him. She didn’t know any better. And maybe he could keep her from knowing better a little longer – it had been one of his few good decisions lately to have her live at Marnie’s while he sorted things out here. Although the sorting things out part could definitely be going better.

Jas’s note was a harsh reminder: he needed to get his shit together and hold that shit together just long enough to get out of there and get to the ranch. He had two weeks before the last month’s rent on Amanda’s apartment ran out. That _should_ be more than enough time.

Well, one thing that needed to get done that did _not_ involve any paperwork or lawyers was getting rid of anything he wasn’t bringing with him back to Marnie’s.

He remembered the room at his aunt’s house was pretty small, so he wouldn’t be able to take much. He hadn’t had a ton of stuff himself; he had only been renting a crappy little studio, and got rid of all his furniture when he’d been evicted three months ago. Most of his shit that was left over was still in boxes in the corner of Amanda’s living room. Well, if he hadn’t opened it by now, he probably didn’t need it all that bad.

Jas had already moved all of her belongings out with her, so he didn’t need to worry about that. If it weren’t for her, he’d probably just toss everything in the entire apartment except a change of clothes, his toothbrush, and his gaming system and call it good. But he felt the weight of responsibility attached to this task: he was supposed to be making sure some of Amanda was preserved for Jas as she got older, wasn’t he?

That was _definitely_ not a task for sober Shane, so he made a quick LQ run, returning with two racks before resuming his task. He opened all the kitchen cabinets then stood back in the middle of the floor and stared at the shelves for a while, hoping beer number three would give him some insight into whether any of this was something that he should be holding on to or not.

Giving up on that for now, he decided he needed something to contain any stuff he might be keeping. He dug around Amanda’s closet and found a shoebox, a big one that had probably held boots or something originally. 

He threw in Amanda’s old favorite jacket and two photo albums. One they had kept before Jas was born, going back over fifteen years: photos of the three of them; Shane, Amanda, and Davy, with various friends that came and went over the years. The other album Amanda had started once Jas was born (yet twice as thick), and was crammed with photos of a black-haired chubby-cheeked baby, birthday memories, and preschool recitals.

He opened the first page and his gaze settled on the one with Amanda in a hospital bed and Davy next to her holding Jas, where Davy’s hair is just starting to grow back after the first round of chemo and they’re both looking at her with those expressions that were too much for Shane to process right now. He snapped the album shut again and put it in the box. His chest felt hollow, the memory of taking that picture echoing around his ribcage.

Guess it was time for beer number four.

He continued rooting around, adding to the box a necklace with a tiny pigeon pendant that Shane had bought Amanda years and years ago that she’d worn ever since (back in school, she’d always teased him for being a hick from Pelican Town, to which Shane naturally had to respond by making fun of her big-city ass being from Pigeon Town), and Amanda and Davy’s wedding rings (he had had to dig around for Davy’s before finding it in the back of Amanda’s night table). And the letters, of course – written for Jas, for every birthday until she was eighteen (when – how? – had Amanda been so fucking organized to do all this shit? He guessed having a kid made you motivated to do stuff like that. Oh, that and living through the father of that kid kicking it, probably). There were ones for her third and fourth birthdays that had already passed. He couldn’t bring himself to get rid of them, though. And there had been a letter for him as well. It was still sealed in its envelope, in a pile of legal papers on the dining table.

He also put in the pack of cigarettes Amanda had been on the day she died, about three quarters full, and her Bic lighter. He didn’t know why. You could pick up an identical pack and lighter at every corner store in Ferngill.

Shane sat on the floor in front of the box, sizing up the items he had already added, wondering how he was meant to be encapsulating Amanda’s entire self in this shoebox for her daughter. His goddaughter…

He needed a smoke right about now. He stood, and was less steady than he had been expecting. The empties around him confirmed that that last beer had definitely not been number four. Whoops.

He checked his phone to see what time it was and saw five missed calls with voicemails, in addition to it only being four o’clock. Probably from probate or court or something. Those were a Future Shane problem.

He headed out to the balcony off the living room with the unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth and another beer in his hand. Amanda had always made them smoke outside or on the balcony. And she’d definitely never let him smoke around Jas. He was probably going to have to cut down a lot now that he was moving in with her and Aunt Marnie. She was always getting on his back about quitting.

He lit his cigarette, and, exhaling out a long stream of smoke, he impulsively took his phone out again and called his voicemail. The first message was the Driver Alcohol Education class informing him he had been disenrolled due to missing too many days. He deleted it and hung up, ignoring the other messages for now.

Whoops again. Oh well, it wasn’t like he was in a rush to get his license back; he wouldn’t really need it in the backwater little town he was going to anyway.

He kept letting stuff like that happen. And he kept wanting to do worse and worse fucked-up shit… Shit that would make Amanda so fucking pissed at him. What if he hopped in Amanda’s car, the one that was already sold, just waiting for the new owner to come pick it up, and hit the bar and just went to fucking town and then got back behind the wheel again? What if he just went inside and laid on the carpet in the middle of the floor until he got evicted from this place, too, and never moved a muscle until the sheriff came and dragged him out? What if he just threw out all his and Amanda’s stuff and didn’t keep any of it for him or Jas? What if he tested out exactly how much of Amanda’s anxiety medication he would need to mix with the beers before he didn’t have to deal with any of this anymore?

Despite what it might appear a lot of the time, he really had always hated disappointing her. A good cussing-out from Amanda was always the failsafe, last-ditch option to bring him back from the brink. He would do anything to have Amanda be angry at him right now.

He needed to get a fucking grip. He wasn’t going to do any of that stuff. Probably. But it definitely was doing nothing to keep going over them in his mind.

Wait… There had been something that had made him want to get shit done. What was it? He stubbed out his cigarette end into the ashtray and made his way back inside, only struggling with the sliding glass door a little. He stood in the middle of the room trying to remember what it was until he finally saw the letter on the kitchen table.

Ah yes, he had been busy feeling guilty.

He had to write a letter back.

Shane staggered over to the junk drawer in the kitchen and rummaged around until he found a pen and a five-by-eight pad. He leaned on the counter and started writing,

_Dear Jas,_

_I miss you too, and I’m sorry I’m not there._

He thought what to write next. He wanted her to know he was still coming for her. He hadn’t forgotten about her. He wasn’t abandoning her.

_I’m coming back soon,_

_I just keep fucking up,_ he thought. Maybe he shouldn’t be writing a letter to a four-year-old a dozen or so beers in at five in the evening, but, he’d proofread it in the morning.

_I should be there in two weeks. Then you can introduce me to all the chickens. Tell me what all their names are in your next letter._

_Is Nora still around? She was my favorite._

Wait, this wasn’t supposed to be a letter about the chickens. _Focus, Shane._

_Be good for Marnie. I love you,_

_\- Shane_

There. That summed it up, probably.

Shane sunk heavily back into the couch and closed his eyes.

This was going to be one hell of a two weeks. He had been the one to help Amanda through when Davy died: he had taken care of a lot of the paperwork and procedures and phone calls, and had made sure she and Jas had real food once in a while, and clean laundry and all that. So why was it so hard doing it now? Why was dying so fucking complicated?

Being awake for four hours was enough for today, right?


	3. Emily

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific chapter tags: Vague suicidal ideation, heavy drinking.

_Spring, year six_

He knew things weren’t going well for him and that everyone could see it. He knew exactly what the older Pelican Town residents were thinking – a regular at the Saloon within a week of moving in? – _like mother, like son_. And he knew being as much of an ass as possible to anyone who got near him was the nuclear option as far as distancing himself went. (Even Pam, who used to run with his mother back in the day, had given up on the empathetic looks.)

The only tolerable person around here was Emily. Minded her own fucking business. Didn’t chat with anyone that didn’t chat with her. Served him drinks without question (unlike Gus, who had cut him off more than once). He didn’t know a single thing about her and he saw her every day. If only everyone else could be like that.

As he had done almost every night for the past few months, he stuck to his corner in the Saloon, planning to sit there and mind his own business until closing.

Actually, it went like this: get up, coffee, clock in at JojaMart, clock out at JojaMart, head to the Saloon, knock back enough drinks to make it through the evening, get back to Marnie’s, pizza rolls, crash, repeat.

From the outside, sure, it looked like going off the deep end, circling the drain. What no one could see though, was that it was actually a very precarious balancing act. If he kept things exactly like this, never moved a muscle out of place, maybe he could keep it up indefinitely.

Or else these small town folks would _really_ get to see what going off the deep end looked like.

But lately, a threat to his equilibrium had cropped up. The new farmer seemed to insist on pestering Shane at some point almost every day. What was that guy’s fucking problem, anyway?

Today, the farmer was approaching Shane on his own turf.

“Hey, Shane,” he said, and leaned his elbows against the bar to order a drink, as if the most natural place to be ordering a drink right now was a foot away from one of the _two_ people sitting at opposite corners of the Saloon’s long-ass bar top, and basically the farthest possible he could be from the register.

“ _What?_ What do you want? You know what? I don’t care. Leave me alone,” Shane turned back to his glass, taking a drink to give his hands something to do.

“Two, please, Emily,” The farmer requested quietly when Emily walked by them.

Shane narrowed his eyes, and Emily grinned back, “Sure thing!” before heading to pour the drinks.

Maybe he’d spoken too soon about Emily.

Emily slid the two beers over.

“Here you go, Jackson. Shane.”

Oh yeah, the farmer had a name. He knew that.

Shane took the largest gulps he could manage, wanting to avoid dragging this exchange out any longer than it had to.

“So, you moved out here a few months ago?” Jackson inquired.

For the love of… He must have been talking to Marnie. Why on the planet was this guy talking about him with Marnie? He looked like he was trying to be all subtle or something, like if Shane caught on that he was trying to start a conversation, Shane would be scared away, but that if he played his cards right, he would get an actual conversation out of Shane. He was a persistent fucker, Shane’d give him that.

“Look, I do not want to talk to you. And it would be great if you could go away now.” Shane shut his eyes, trying to compose himself.

When he opened his eyes, Jackson was still there and Shane shot him a side-eyed glare.

“You’re still here? How many times do I have to tell you to leave me alone?”

Shane stood and stalked out.

If that farmer kept it up, he might have to find another route home. And maybe even forego the Saloon entirely and just bring the shitty JojaMart beer straight back to his room after work (okay, not that he didn’t do that sometimes regardless). Shane didn’t love that idea. Despite appearances, he did have enough shame to try to avoid getting completely hammered with Jas around. But… some situations were desperate. He couldn’t take this kind of distraction right now. He just had to make it through to the end of the day, every day, for the rest of his life _or until things suddenly get better by_ _magic_ , he thought, sarcastically. Was it better to have a drunk godfather than a dead one? Maybe, maybe not.

He didn’t realize he was still gripping his half-empty beer glass until he arrived at the ranch’s front door. Ah well. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Shane lumbered inside, finishing off the drink, and miraculously remembered to put the glass in the sink before he retreated into his room for the night. As he passed the kitchen counter, he noticed a small piece of paper, folded in half, and opened it. It had obviously been made by Jas: the paper was cut into an irregular, long rectangle, some edges jagged from small-fingered scissor work:

 _Dear Shane._ _I am skip roping in the forst. Com meet me. Lov from Jas_

Shit.

His phone was dead, but the microwave clock said it was 12am. Jas must have gone to bed hours ago. Shane peered around the corner. Her room was dark and he could hear her soft sleepy snores.

Shit. Shit, shit shit shit. This was exactly the kind of fuck-up that would throw off his balance.

He had kept telling himself: just make it through today; he just had to get to the end of the day. But it wasn’t just him anymore, was it? He couldn’t believe how _impossibly_ selfish he was being right now. He was missing _time_ with her. Shane was pretty sure this wasn’t what Amanda had had in mind when she’d made him Jas’s godfather. Although, he’d warned her – and she knew him better than anyone. What could she honestly have expected?

He grabbed the note and went to his bedroom. He tried to get across the room to his bed, but the floor was being uncooperative and he felt it sliding up to meet him. _Hey_ , he thought, annoyed at the floor for being like that. He wasn’t trying to sit down right now, he was _trying_ to get to the bed.

That last drink was really hitting him, huh? Now the floor was spinning him around. Which was funny, but definitely did not feel great.

As long as he was already on the floor, in arm’s reach of the mini-fridge, he might as well have _one_ more. For the spinning. As he went to open the door, he realized Jas’s note was still in his hand. He grabbed a can from the fridge and downed it before opening up the note again and rereading it several times over.

He started sniffling pathetically. “Sorry, ‘Mandy.” The words stuck to his tongue, and he stretched out on the floor. He’d just rest there a second, then he’d get into bed. But he found out the next morning that he’d ended up breaking that promise too.


	4. Shane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific chapter tags: suicidal ideation (referencing canon/heart scenes)

_Summer, year seven_

Shane had never been much a fan of summer. Everyone’s sudden energetic pulse to _do_ pulling; the heat in a room with no A/C pushing – everything around him sped up. Shane would remain the same dull, sluggish state as always, begrudgingly dragged along for the ride. Winter’s inclination toward dim, ruminating, hibernation was more his pace.

But it somehow didn’t feel quite so trying to be outdoors today, sitting with Jackson on the end of the pier on the pond. Morris had given him and Sam the afternoon off work because Morris had to go out of town for a reason Shane had not bothered to catch; he’d stopped listening after ‘take the rest of the afternoon off’. For once he was glad that bastard was such a control freak he wouldn’t leave them in the store alone.

A year ago, Shane would have hated the down time. But now, there were actually things in his life that weren’t too bad: that he’d actually want to spend time doing. Like, just chilling with Jackson while he waited for Jas to come back from school.

Shane pushed up his sleeves and skipped a flat rock across the surface of the pond from the small pile he and Jackson kept up. It only managed a meager two skips before sinking, not enough even to tie him with Jackson’s tally.

“Looks like pizza’s on you Friday,” Jackson smiled, looking amused.

“Hey, there’s still another round to go. I’d think you of all people would know enough about chickens not to start any counting just yet.”

Shane heard the sound of small voices chattering excitedly coming up the path from the direction of town, and turned to see Jas saying goodbye to Vincent and Penny.

“Hey Jas,” Shane called, waving.

Jas ran over to them, hopping on one leg the last few steps down the pier.

“You’re home early!” she grinned.

“Yep, didn’t have to work this afternoon. How was school today?”

“Good. I practiced my writing with Miss Penny.”

Jas handed him a piece of paper and twirled away, skipping as she went.

Shane read:

_Dear Shane,_

_Penny said I should write a thank you note for the birthday present you gave me._

_Thank you for the shoes. I love them so much._

_Vincent said not to say what I wished for on my candles, but Mama said I could, I remember that, so I wished I get to be there with you_

_on your next birthday so I can give you a present back and that you make a plan so you don’t have to go before then._

_Love Jas_

A thank-you note was definitely cute as fuck, but the last part stumped him. Go where? He turned it over, frowning, but it was blank.

“What?” asked Jackson.

Shane passed him the note.

“A plan?” Jackson said, puzzled.

“I dunno either.”

He turned in the direction Jas had gone. She was now jumping rope over in her favorite spot by the big tree, singing something inaudible to herself.

“Jas!”

She stopped. Shane waved her over, and Jas trotted back over to the pier.

She stood next to him, expectantly.

“So, we were just reading your thank-you note,” he started, “Which I appreciate very much, thank you.” Jas smiled up at him. “But, uh, what does this mean at the end here, bud?”

“Oh,” Jas said, her small face suddenly clouded with concern, “Well, that one time, you said you might not stay around here, so you don’t need a plan… So, I was wishing you did have a plan. So you stay.”

“Oh...” A cold knot formed in Shane’s stomach as recognition set in. “Oh.”

The words he had spoken to Marnie in a poorly-timed temper tantrum echoed back at him. _Hopefully I won't be around long enough to need a plan._ He felt the familiar burn of shame throughout his body.

Jeez. So now he needed to explain to a six-year-old that she had misunderstood his suicidal statement without explaining to a six-year-old that she had misunderstood his suicidal statement.

He glanced over at Jackson, who had clearly realized what Jas was referring to as well. Shane shoved aside the humiliating memory of waking up soaking wet on the floor of his room, Jackson standing over him. This wasn’t about Shane right now.

Jas was looking between him and Jackson with a puzzled look.

Shane held his arms out to Jas. “Sit with me?”

Jas plopped down in the space between his crossed legs, and Shane wrapped his arms around her.

He had thought that trying to get his shit together would be enough. He had done the rock-bottom thing, and now he was spending more time with Jas, he’d cut back a ton on his drinking, and he’d been going to therapy for almost a month now. But this – this was hard evidence: he couldn’t just _‘be better’_ now. He knew ignoring the past and hoping for the best didn’t work on himself, so he wasn’t sure how he could have thought it’d work when it came to kids.

He spent a moment just squeezing Jas tight against his chest until she started giggling.

“What?” Jas laughed. ~~~~

“Jas,” Shane started, “I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

“You’re not? So, you have a plan?” She twisted to look up at him.

“I don’t need a plan to stay here. I have you. And Marnie.”

“And Jackson?” Jas asked.

“Yeah, and Jackson, why not?” Shane smiled a little despite everything. He looked over at Jackson, whose expression seemed torn between the weight of the conversation and amusement at Jas now making him an honorary member of the family.

“Then why did you say that?” she inquired.

He sure as fuck didn’t know how to explain any of this to her. He was never really one to talk differently around Jas, but he did try to shelter her from some of his bullshit. He thought about the times growing up that his mother had tried to apologize for some parenting failure or another she had pulled when she’d been plastered or passed-out. The conversation always twisted so many times that by the end he’d somehow end up angry at himself for being the one who’d fucked up. He’d just try to stick to the opposite of that and hopefully it would land him in the ballpark.

“Well, let’s see. I… was sad a lot, like, all the time, for really a long time, even before your mom died. And when your head is making itself really sad like that, sometimes you can’t remember all the good things, and I thought I was just going to be sad forever. So, my brain started telling me there’s no point in making any plans for the future, like finding a job I wanted to do, because I would just be sad either way. And I felt so bad all the time, it made me start wishing I would just disappear or… wouldn’t be alive anymore… because I didn’t know how to make it feel better.”

At this, Jas clung harder to Shane’s arm.

“That’s what you heard me talking about. Aunt Marnie was saying she hoped I could think of something I wanted to do, and I was saying I felt so sad that I couldn’t imagine that, and hoped I could disappear instead. Except, my head was just messing with me, and none of that was true. I had a lot of good things and I could feel other things, I just couldn’t remember. And even if things feel really bad all the time, there’s always something that can make it feel better, even if it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.”

Shane uncrossed his legs, prompting Jas to stand up, and he spun her around to face him. He held both of Jas’s hands and looked at her with his most serious face.

“Jas, I need you to know that it was just my brain telling me all that. No matter how good the things in my life were, my brain would have told me the same thing. So don’t try and tell yourself you could have done something to make me feel better, okay? It just had to learn how to get better by itself.”

Jas nodded. She had tears in her eyes. Shane hoped any of this was the right thing to say.

“I don’t plan on leaving you any time soon, okay?”

Jas nodded again.

“Does that make sense?”

“So, you don’t need to find a plan?”

“Nah, I already have one and that’s to be with you and Marnie. I’m sorry for making you worry about that.”

“But what if your brain does that again?”

“It could happen. Sometimes it still feels sad like that. But now I know I have people to help me when I start feeling like that, like Aunt Marnie, and–”

“And like Jackson,” Jas interrupted.

Shane couldn’t help laughing this time. He looked up at Jackson. “Yeah Jackson’s helped me a lot with not listening when my brain tells me things that aren’t true. I also talk to a, uh… a therapist. That’s like… an expert on what to do when you’re really sad.”

It shouldn’t have been hard to admit to her that he was seeing a therapist, when there was probably no way for her to have absorbed anything negative about needing a therapist, but he still had to force the words out.

“But if you’re ever worried about stuff like that again, come ask me about it, okay? I don’t want you to have to worry by yourself.”

“Okay, Shane.”

“I love you, Jas.”

“I love you too.”

Shane hugged her close again.

“Shane?” Jas said, muffled by Shane’s hoodie.

“Jas?”

“Can I go play with Charlie now?”

“Yeah, sure, kid, get out of here.”

He let go of Jas and she scampered away, stopping to examine something on the ground closely on her way back to the house.

Shane turned back to Jackson. Not too long ago, Shane would probably be feeling embarrassed right about now, but instead, having Jackson there for a difficult conversation had been comforting.

“Hey,” Jackson said, voice low, “I know it wasn’t easy to say all those things. You did good.”

Shane exhaled. “I shouldn’t have had to say it in the first place. I feel like absolute shit, Jackson. A six-year-old shouldn’t have to deal with that kind of garbage. I didn’t know that had stuck with her like that. That was months ago now. And I said it right in front of her.”

“All you can really do is just keep having this conversation with Jas, and keep showing up for her, you know?”

“I keep feeling like she’d be better off without me.”

“Well, tell that feeling to fuck off.”

Shane shrugged and grabbed a rock from the pile, skipping it out over the pond. He wanted to hold on to the feeling of sliding down into his pit of self-loathing a little while longer.

He hadn’t really met anyone else like Jackson before. It never felt like there were a finite number of chances Shane was steadily burning through every time he fucked something up. Don’t get him wrong, Marnie had had an extreme amount of patience with Shane for all he’d put her through over the years, but he sensed she did have a line that could be permanently crossed. And, rightfully so, she’d get disappointed whenever he broke his word or didn’t live up to her expectations.

With Jackson… Like now, he never really dwelled on what should have been or could have been. Where most people’s emotions ran high in response to Shane’s moods or drinking or self-sabotaging, Jackson remained like an unyielding steam engine. It was always an assumption that Shane was standing up for the eighth time, though it seemed to stem more from a kind of pragmatism than blind optimism. All right, so you fell apart – no need to fall apart about it. Just gather up whatever pieces you give a shit about and keep moving.

He looked over his shoulder toward the ranch and saw Jas in the animal pen, chasing a chicken around.

Jas finally caught up with the chicken and held it to her chest.

“Jackson! Look!” Jas called from across the clearing. “Shane, look!” She held the chicken up over her head.

“All right, chicken wrangler!” Jackson shouted back.

Shane and Jackson laughed as the chicken flapped its way free from Jas’s grasp.

“Jas really likes you, huh?” Shane chuckled.

“Yeah, I think that pink cake we made for her birthday made an impression.”

“You have no idea. She hasn’t stopped talking about it. She doesn’t even want to eat the last piece because she wants to save that frosting flower that’s on it.”

“She’s a good one.”

“She is.” Shane looked behind him again, but Jas must have gone back inside. “Man, I really fuckin’ love that kid.”

“You should see the way her face gets when you walk in the room. I’m pretty sure she thinks you’re all right, too. Maybe second to birthday cake, though.”

Shane cracked a smile and elbowed him in the arm.

He looked over at Jackson, who was looking back at him. Shane hadn’t thought hazel eyes were really a thing – he’d always just chalked it up to brown-eyed people wanting to feel special about something – but if someone had asked the color of Jackson’s eyes, that was the color Shane would call it.

Shane looked away again quickly and picked up another rock and skipped it.

“I hope whatever you’re thinking about is what toppings to get on the pizza you’re buying us, because those last two rocks totally counted.”

“Then I hope you like frozen recently-expired JojaMart pizza, ‘cause, I just lost half a day’s pay doing fuck-all with you,” Shane pretended to grumble.

Now that Shane thought about it, he could probably be contributing more to their friendship now that he was able to do more than just try surviving to the end of the day. Shane made a mental note to look up how much Tunnelers tickets cost when he got home.


	5. Jackson

_Fall, year eight_

The crowd at the fair was unpleasantly large this year. There were enough people around the animal pens that multiple people had brushed up against Shane as they passed him, and the humming voices and various clashing carnival tunes were buzzing in his head. Shane would have preferred to be just about anywhere else at the moment. But he was there to be supportive while his boyfriend kicked everyone else’s asses for the third year in a row with his grange display, and Jas had been talking about seeing the show animals for weeks.

Jas pointed to the chicken that evidently had been deemed the grand champion.

“Henri’s definitely bigger than that chicken, she totally could have won.”

Shane frowned.

“I don’t think they’re judged by how big they are, Jas.”

Jas crossed her arms and hummed disapprovingly.

“What are they judged on then?” she said, with a comical level of contempt in her voice.

“How much they look like the breed standard – like, how close they are to what that kind of chicken is supposed to look like.”

“And not even if they can do any tricks,” Jas grumbled.

“You’ll just have to start your own chicken event, then, huh?” Shane elbowed her.

She sighed. “I guess so.”

Shane looked down at Jas, who continued to squint critically at the row of chickens. She was almost grown out of that ‘little kid’ stage. It was wild to be seeing her forming her own opinions, getting her own unique ideas, being judgmental about other people’s chickens… He wondered what Amanda would think about her daughter growing up such a country kid.

Jas was standing next to him again and tugging on his sleeve.

“Can I have some popcorn?”

Another out-of-towner bumped into Shane from behind. He clenched his teeth and took a breath to try and dissolve the frustration.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

He let her pull him by the arm over to the tent selling giant paper bags overflowing with popcorn. Shane’s eyes, however, gravitated to the stall next to it. The bright red hand-painted sign advertised a cider made by an orchard from a couple towns over.

Man, he could really go for a drink right now.

And, well… Shane hadn’t said he would _never_ drink again. He didn’t have to feel bad about enjoying a cold one every once in a while. Or a nice seasonal cider.

Plus, it wasn’t really anybody’s business what he did at the fair, was it? He wasn’t responsible for anyone else right now: Jas was technically here with Vincent, and they had been occupied with the animals and the games. And she had Marnie to watch out for her, too. Jackson and Marnie were here for their grange displays. Everyone was doing their thing. Nothing wrong with him doing his thing.

Yeah, he might as well.

Shane paid for Jas’s popcorn, his mind already moved on to the next stall over. He could practically taste the cider already. He was handing the paper bag to Jas and already counting out the rest of his money to buy his drink when the popcorn vendor spoke up.

“Are you and your daughter enjoying the fair so far?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah.”

Shane looked down as Jas. It had been a _long_ time since anyone had assumed Jas was his kid – everyone in Pelican Town had known she wasn’t a blood relative of Marnie’s by the time Shane had moved in. It had happened a lot when he and Amanda and Jas would do things together, but they’d just laugh it off at the time.

It seemed cold now to correct the assumption right in front of her.

_That’s my goddaughter._

_She’s not my daughter._

“Is it your first time?” the vendor continued in a peppy voice that grated on his already aggravated nerves.

“No.”

Shane didn’t elaborate and turned to the cider stall.

“Bye, Shane!” Jas called, waving.

Shane waved back weakly and watched her as she ran over to Vincent at one of the game tents.

“Can I help you?” the person running the register at the cider tent called out, in a tone Shane distinctly recognized from personal experience as a customer service voice that was being stretched to the end of its rope.

After a quick visual sweep of his surroundings, Shane paid for the drink, shoving the receipt into his pocket and heading over to a tree to enjoy his cider in the shade.

Shane leaned up against the trunk and let out an exhale of relief. But Shane was realizing with unease it was less a relief in finally getting to drink in peace and more the short-lived relief of not getting caught doing something he knew he shouldn’t be doing.

He needed to find Jackson.

Shane dumped the cider in the nearest trash can and scanned the crowd. He finally spotted Jackson deep in discussion with Robin.

By the time he reached them, Jackson was wrapping up his conversation.

“Hey,” Jackson smiled, turning to Shane and sliding an arm around his waist.

Shane hadn’t known how unsteady he was feeling until that grounding contact of a familiar person was anchoring him down into himself again.

“Hey, could you stay with me for a bit and… help me not fuck up right now?”

“Yeah. You want to take five over by that storage tent?”

“Sure.”

Shane weaved through the fairgoers, Jackson behind him with a hand on his back, until they reached the storage area. They sat on overturned crates behind a row of barrels, so they were just out of sight, and Jackson held out a hand. Shane put his hand in Jackson’s and Jackson sandwiched it between his palms.

Shane sat for a minute, just feeling the light pressure of Jackson’s hands and the growing, spiraling heaviness of shame dragging at his insides.

“I’m so close to blowing it again,” he said, in a low voice that was almost a whisper.

Jackson just held onto Shane’s hand. He was never one to waste time on empty words of comfort, which suited Shane just fine. People always wanted to fill up every space with words to soothe and calm and solve and make everything go away. But it was in the open space that Shane often found words he hadn’t known he needed to say – or that he had deliberately avoided saying until his anxiety insisted that the silence must be filled with something, anything, and then that thing he wouldn’t even admit to himself was spilling out.

“ _I've been drinking again._ ”

Like that.

“Well, not _drinking_ drinking,” he backtracked, “But there have been… times.”

“Yeah. I noticed,” Jackson said, holding Shane’s hand a little tighter. “I’ve been worried about you. But I’m glad you’re talking about it now.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Shane asked, incredulous.

Jackson shrugged. “If I had asked you this morning if you were drinking again would you have said yes?”

“No,” Shane admitted.

“When you want me to say something, you talk to me about it. All I can do is be here for when you ask me to support you.”

He laughed humorlessly. “Well, you’ve got me pretty much figured out, then.”

Shane looked back up at Jackson. Jackson would probably try to disagree with him, but Shane wasn’t sure he deserved his support this time. There wasn’t even a good reason for messing up in the first place: his depression hadn’t been all that bad; he wasn’t in any particularly stressful situations right now – he’d even made it through times when the cravings were way worse than this without even going near a bar. It was all really for nothing.

“I’m _really_ sorry.”

“No need to apologize.”

“No, no, I do. I’ve been lying to you and doing some pretty fucked-up stuff behind your back, and–” Shane tried to think of a way to make Jackson understand, to break through that unshakable exterior and make him really _understand_ how pathetic and contemptible he was.

“Look, I was about to start drinking just now when I’m supposed to be watching Jas,” (despite what his Alcoholic Brain might have convinced himself of not even ten minutes ago), “And the last few times I went to the city for therapy, I didn’t even go, I just went to a bar.”

“I know about the therapy thing, Shane… You’re not especially subtle when you’ve been drinking.”

“How are you still okay with this?” Shane laughed in disbelief. “If you knew about it, how can you still be here?”

Jackson’s gaze focused intently on Shane’s hands in his.

“Well, I’m here because you’re here right now. You’re talking to me, and you’re going to keep at it – and you’re gonna get it one of these days.”

“Fuck, Jackson.” Shane could feel tears starting to spill over and wiped at his cheeks with his jacket sleeve. “Sometimes I can’t tell if you really get it that I’m an addict; I’m just a drunk in a long line of town drunks. Whenever I think things are gonna be okay, next thing I know I’m back here again. And every time I think I’ve hit rock bottom, I end up proving myself wrong, like, ‘ _oh, good, I can actually sink lower’!_ There might not ever be an end to me screwing up like this, you know? Why stick around when you’re waiting for something that might never happen?”

“I’m not just waiting for things to get better. I’m with you now because I love you now.”

Shane was surprised to see tears in Jackson’s eyes.

“All of you. _Including,_ ” Jackson continued, silencing Shane’s attempts at protesting, “The parts that mess up and go through shitty times. I know who you are right now – and it’s not ‘just a drunk’.”

Shane scrutinized Jackson’s expression, desperate to find something in it like doubt, naivety, hidden conditions, dismissal – but all his eyes reflected was even certainty (albeit a reddish, watery certainty).

“Hey, I’m proud of you, okay?”

The words caught Shane off guard and shattered through a vulnerable point in his layers of defenses. He dissolved into quiet sobs he had no control over, and all he could do as they shook his body was bury his face in his palms. ~~~~

_I’m proud of you._

It cut to the core of the fears he was tangled in so precisely, cut through the shame underneath it, and exposed the ragged hole at the center of it all that longed for acceptance, for anyone to believe he could be enough someday. Maybe it was because his old walls and those distorting thought-traps were shot through, but the way Jackson said it, Shane believed – fully, for the first time – that Jackson actually did love him and believed in him and was proud of him.

Jackson’s arms were around him and Shane felt himself being gently rocked back and forth as he cried.

“You talked to someone before you had a drink today, and you only drank a few times before this. That’s not nothing. And I’m proud of you for making it to today,” Jackson was continuing.

Shane’s outburst subsided into silent tears. Ugh, he was literally crying in the town square right now. He hoped it hadn’t been too audible to everyone around them.

“Thank you Jackson.”

Shane pulled back and threaded his fingers through Jackson’s.

“I’m gonna keep trying. For you. For Jas.”

“Okay,” Jackson nodded.

“Maybe someday I can do it for me,” he added. “I’m probably gonna mess up again, though.”

“It’s possible.” Jackson stood and offered a hand to Shane to pull himself up. “You wanna find out?”

Shane looked up at Jackon again, confirming again for himself the sincerity of his words.

He took Jackson’s hand and stood.

Maybe there _could_ be more to life than this. Maybe Jackson was right. He was so sure of himself, it was hard not to believe him at least a little.

Jackson stayed by his side the rest of the day, and when Shane made it home that night, it was with an exhausted, satisfied relief knowing he had made it through the day.

After checking on the hens one last time before turning in, Shane found taped to the wall a slip of paper clearly intended to be a home-made ribbon, a neat script proclaiming:

BIGGEST CHICKEN: HENRIETTA

Shane chuckled to himself. Well, maybe he could take a page out of Jas’ book and make his own rules – shape the world around him into what he wanted, not the other way around.

And, there were things he wanted. Being a better godfather - that was always a given. Paying off his debts – being able to support himself, his family. Having his own chicken farm. Maybe getting his driver’s license back sometime. He surprised himself at how easily those aspirations came to him. Usually, even thinking about concrete changes he wanted to make was terrifying. Having real goals meant more things to fail at.

But it was only day one. And somewhere in him, he was starting to believe he didn’t have to do it alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't abandoned this fic! Just needed to let it rest and settle in my mind for a while before going back and writing for it again. :)
> 
> Thank you for reading and for your comments & kudos, and I hope to update again soon!


	6. Marnie

_Spring, year ten_

The smell of bacon and coffee drifted into his consciousness before he’d even opened his eyes.

Shane pulled the blankets back over his head, burrowing into the warmth – just a couple more minutes. But Jackson must have seen the movement from the next room because Shane felt him flop down on the bed and lift the covers to scoot in behind Shane.

“You’re letting out all the warm,” Shane grumbled.

Jackson ignored him and wrapped an arm around Shane’s waist.

“Happy New Year,” Jackson said softly, his nose a cold point on the back of Shane’s neck.

Oh yeah, it was New Year’s Day. He felt a little unsettled by that, and wasn’t sure why.

“Yeah, happy New Year,” he replied, squeezing Jackson’s hand.

Shane rolled over to face Jackson and let himself be drawn close into his arms. Shane closed his eyes again as Jackson rested his forehead against Shane’s. He breathed in the scent of clean laundry and warm breakfast as they sunk into a deep kiss.

“Isn’t your bacon gonna burn?” Shane murmured against Jackson’s mouth.

“I just took it out of the pan, so we’re good.”

“Damn, then what are we waiting for?”

Shane gave Jackson another kiss and rolled himself out of bed. Pulling on his zip-up hoodie, it suddenly hit Shane what felt so off about today: he wasn’t hungover. No headache, or rushing to the nearest bathroom, or navigating a minefield of cans, bottles, and puke across the floor. The last time Shane had been sober enough on New Year’s Eve to avoid a hangover, he was probably… sixteen?

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh. I was just realizing… I’ve never really done New Year’s sober before… ever in my adult life. It’s weird.”

“That’s big, Shane, you should have said something!”

He shrugged.

“Can I hug you?” Jackson asked, pulling himself out of bed.

Shane muttered under his breath. “It’s not hug-worthy.”

“Come here.”

Jackson pulled him in, and Shane grudgingly let himself be hugged before giving in and slumping into Jackson’s arms.

“Yesterday sucked,” Shane exhaled.

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for making it suck less, anyway.”

Jackson hugged him tighter in response. Then he stretched himself to his full height and rested his chin on top of Shane’s head.

“You’re too tall,” Shane grumbled.

“Really? I think we’re just the perfect height.”

Shane couldn’t see him, but he could hear the grin in Jackson’s voice.

“Come on, let’s have breakfast.”

They ate a light meal, since Jackson had made what Shane had deduced must be a ridiculously enormous amount of food for later from the sheer amount of time Jackson had spent in the kitchen the last few days, then Shane hopped in the shower. He let the scalding water fill the room with thick steam and brighten his skin to a sunburn red.

The last year had been one of the most difficult in his life in some ways. He hadn’t expected it to be so fucking _hard_ to go completely sober; after all, even on his first cold-turkey attempt it had been years since going on a bender meant checking out for days at a time. He’d already stopped his two-in-the-afternoon sessions at the Saloon. But he supposed it had always been the other kind of drinking that crept up on him and got him in trouble: just one ‘cause it was the perfect weather for a cold one, just two with some old buddies, just three to take the edge off…

It shouldn’t have been hard to face the fact that he wasn’t one of those people who could just cut back – just drink socially, casually. Shane had wanted that to be him so bad. Until now, all the ‘definitely-getting-sober-this-times’ came with the footnote that once he was better, he’d get to drink like a normal person again. But he could only make the same mistakes so many times.

It had been a year of having to figure out how the fuck Sober Shane dealt with all the shit he’d always just drowned out in the past. (Sometimes it wasn’t even the anxiety or the depression or fear or anger, it was just the itchingly unbearable feeling of just having to exist in his own skin that got him the most.)

On the other hand, it had also been one of the best years Shane had had in a very long time – probably since before Davy died, honestly. Day by day, it seemed he was spending a bit less time fighting for survival and piece by piece, building a life that he wanted to be there for.

He was never one to make resolutions, but it felt like his whole year had just been one big long reflection on if there was something he actually wanted to do with his crappy little existence, and with everyone talking about their goals this time of year, admittedly, there was something that had been on his mind.

The water started running lukewarm, so Shane quickly jumped out, knowing from unpleasant experience it was only seconds away from full-on icy. Jackson slipped into the bathroom behind Shane as he exited.

“Jackson?” Shane called from the bedroom, pulling on a pair of boxers and digging around in the clean laundry hamper for a shirt to throw on.

“Mhm?”

“I’ve been thinking about something.”

“What’s that?”

Shane came over to hover at the bathroom doorway, where Jackson was now trimming his beard.

“Well, only if it’s something you want, too, but… I’ve been thinking a lot about my responsibilities as Jas’s godfather.”

“Oh?” Jackson said, lowering the beard trimmer and looking at Shane through the reflection in the mirror.

“Yeah… I always thought I’d get to be her actual guardian eventually, like I was supposed to, but then, whenever I thought about it, it never felt like it was in her best interest. I’ve been thinking, though… I could still get there.”

Jackson set down his trimmer and turned to face Shane. 

Shane pressed on. “I guess I’m trying to say I want Jas to come live with us someday if she wanted to. I’ve been thinking about it a lot actually. I wouldn’t bring it up unless I thought you might also want that, and if it could be good for everyone. But… is that… something you might…?”

“Yeah– yes, definitely!” Jackson stammered in surprise. It was rare that Shane could catch him off guard enough to shake him from his even, deliberate words. “Wow. Yeah, that would be great, I love that kid. If she wanted to live here, of course.”

“Yeah, I haven’t talked to Jas or Marnie about it yet or anything. But we’re all together almost every day, and we look after her all the time when Marnie needs a break or has somewhere to be.”

Jackson nodded. “To be honest, not that long ago I was realizing I’d been thinking of Jas as my niece. I forget that that’s not really technically true.”

“Oh, no, you’re part of this weird little family whether you like it or not at this point.”

Jackson turned back to the mirror and picked up the scissors to continue tending to his beard, a small smile twitching on his lips now and then like he couldn’t stop it from cropping up. Shane leaned against the bathroom door frame and bit his thumbnail as the insecurities that always intermingled with his hopes about his future with Jas bubbled up.

“Am I just being selfish, though Jackson? Maybe it’s better to just leave her where she is, you know? Not interrupt anything. Jas and Marnie seem to be having a pretty good time without me. Plus, she’s lived at Marnie’s half her life now. Maybe I just want to do it to feel better about giving up custody when Amanda died, or just to prove to myself that I can do it.

“Okay, except, I _am_ going to talk to Jas about it first, so she has the option to say ‘no’ and tell me if she wants to stay where she is,” Shane pointed his hands at a spot in the air as if the evidence for this argument was spelled out there. “But also,” he added, pivoting his hands in another direction “I don’t want to make her feel like we’re asking her to choose between me and Marnie.

 _“But:_ she _knows_ about how she ended up living with Marnie and how the only reason I couldn’t take care of her myself was because of my drinking problem and depression and all that. So, she knows living with Marnie was meant to be temporary. She’s going to be nine this year, and she’s already too smart for an eight-year-old, so I don’t want her to see me doing better and wonder if I decided I didn’t want her. Or anything else that big brain might cook up, you know?”

Jackson had set down his tools again and was leaning back against the sink with his arms folded across his chest.

“And I’m doing okay now, but what if she moved in and I started drinking again and then she had to go back? And–”

“Okay, okay, Shane” Jackson cut in, moving in and taking Shane’s hands in his. Shane hadn’t realized he’d been rambling, speaking faster and faster, the panicky feeling in his throat growing. He closed his eyes and took a breath.

“I can tell you’ve given this a lot of thought…” Jackson continued, keeping a gentle, grounding hold on Shane’s hands, “And I think it’s a good idea, okay? You don’t have to convince me. You care about Jas and love her very much. Let’s just ask Marnie what she thinks.”

Shane nodded slowly, his heart rate starting to return to normal.

Jackson let go of Shane’s hands and scrubbed a hand through his beard. “I think you’re right about making Jas feel like she has to choose between you and Marnie though. Maybe it’s better to talk about it with Marnie and if we all think it’s a good idea, we could tell her it’s time for her to come live with you – us – but with room for her to say no.”

“Okay, yeah. I’ll see what Marnie thinks. Maybe I’ll mention it to her today. I don’t know.”

“Speaking of – we need to get out of here,” Jackson said, clapping Shane’s arms and turning back to the mirror.

“Yeah,” Shane grimaced, pushing off the doorframe as Jackson started packing away his beard trimmer and scissors.

By the time they reached Marnie’s, the sun was high in the sky, glaring off the half-melted remains of snow on the ground. Marnie and Jas were already outside, carrying a covered dish of what Shane already knew was rhubarb pie, made for Jackson’s benefit. Marnie baked rhubarb pie for every special occasion and holiday now. He felt a little ember-glow in the pit of his stomach seeing Jackson’s presence taken for granted in a hundred little ways like this, like dropping in on Marnie and finding she’d set the dinner table for four already, or Jas never failing to have a specific message for Shane to pass along to Jackson if Shane happened to stop by the ranch alone.

“Happy New Year!” Jas bounced as Shane and Jackson approached, the backpack and lavender child-sized fishing pole she was carrying bouncing with her.

The four of them headed out on what was about to be their third annual New Year’s picnic at Arrowhead Island (this one already surpassing the other two due to Shane’s conspicuous lack of a headache).

Once they arrived, Jackson and Jas split off to fish the river and see if they could still catch a glacierfish. Shane hung back with Marnie and set up a picnic blanket on the clearest patch of dead, pale, wet grass they could find. He felt his knees creak as he sat down. Maybe Shane could subtly convince his boyfriend that building a picnic table out here was a good idea.

Shane took a large thermos of hot water and poured himself and Marnie each a mug. He mixed in a packet of instant coffee and Marnie pulled out a teabag and began steeping it in her mug.

“Hey, Marnie?”

“Mhm?” she hummed as she settled into a spot on the blanket.

“Um, so, I know things still aren’t perfect, and I still have work to do, but… I’ve been thinking. I’ve been relying on you for raising Jas for a long time now. But I’m Jas’s godfather, I should be the one taking care of her. She’s about to turn nine here pretty soon, and I really want to keep trying to get to a place where she could come live with me. I don’t know, what do you think, Marnie?”

Marnie’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, quickly shifting to delight. “I think that’s wonderful, Shane! Of course, it would get lonely without you two down at the farm, but I think Jas will love the idea.”

Shane stirred his coffee and watched all the little granules dissolve. It was what he was hoping to hear, but it somehow didn’t ease any of his worries.

“You know, Shane, I’m really glad to see you doing so well and thinking about your future like this.”

“Thanks, Marnie. I’m trying anyway.”

“You’re already doing it, Shane.”

He huffed and busied himself on the task of emptying an unreasonable number of sugar packets into his coffee with more focus than necessary.

“I owe it to you, you know,” he finally replied, “I honestly have no idea where I’d be if you hadn’t let me stay with you the, what was it – five different times since I was twelve or something?”

“I always knew you’d do more with your life if you could just get the time to figure it out. You were the one that did the hard work Shane. And here you are,” she smiled and patted his hand affectionately.

“Well, I’m… working on it. But I’m going to keep working on myself and my life and all that and… hopefully at some point we’ll be able to talk with Jas about living with us.”

“Why don’t we talk with her about it today?”

“Today? I-I don’t know... What if I start drinking again and have to tell her she can’t come live with me yet? Kids always think that stuff’s their fault.”

“Shane, you’ve had one slip in the last two years, you don’t think you’re ready?”

Shane cringed at the reference his twenty-four-hour-plus blackout spree in Zuzu City that landed him in an actual Detox for the first time in his life. He wasn’t sure how long it would be until he felt like he had any sort of distance from that particular memory.

“I mean, I only had one _huge_ slip, but there were some other times, too, Marnie, even if they weren’t _that_ bad… I think I would need to be completely, _completely_ sober before I would trust myself, and it’ll only be a year of that tomorrow.”

He was a little worried Marnie might not be taking this seriously enough. She’d seen how many times he’d gone crawling back to alcohol in the past. She knew better than most how low he could sink, what a disappointment he could be.

“A year with no lapses isn’t nothing, Shane. And the ‘other times’ were last New Year's, and then before that, one time you drank one beer and two times you bought a drink and didn’t have it. Plus, you were the one that told me that too much guilt about the small stuff like that is what turns them into the big stuff.”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘recovery isn’t a straight line’, ‘don’t make a lapse a relapse’, ‘you can never go back to square one’, all that stuff, I know,” Shane grumbled.

“At some point you just have to trust yourself and give yourself the chance to succeed, don’t you?”

“Well, I at least need some training wheels or something for a while – this is someone’s life we’re talking about.”

“What about Jas living with you two on the weekends?”

That… might actually be a decent idea. Shane nodded slowly. “I can ask Jackson about it. Are you sure it would be a good idea, though, Marnie? What if I’m not ready for a step up and I start drinking again because of the stress?”

“Are you going to do that?”

“No,” Shane sulked. “But what if I did.”

Marnie gave him a pointed look.

“Okay, okay,” he conceded, holding up his hands.

They sipped their hot drinks in comfortable silence until Jas and Jackson came back into view.

“Glacierfish biting this morning?” Shane called.

“No, but we got two catfish!” Jas said as she sped toward them. “Marnie, can we have them for dinner?”

“Maybe if you and Jackson gut them, dear – I’m already tired. Getting too old to stay up ‘til midnight anymore.”

While Marnie and Jas made their fish plans, Shane took advantage of Jackson having trailed behind Jas at a much slower pace; under the guise of taking Jackson his mug of coffee, Shane pulled him aside and told him about Marnie’s idea of Jas staying over for weekends. The shit-scared part of Shane had hoped Jackson would be apprehensive, say it was too soon for Shane to be trying something like that, but Jackson had been all wide grin and tangible enthusiasm when he’d agreed.

And then everyone was sitting down for their now-customary New Year’s Day brunch. Jackson pulled more containers from his backpack than Shane had even been aware had been prepared, each containing home-cooked dishes Jackson had been preparing the last few days.

Shane watched as he and Marnie opened containers of farmer’s lunch, muffins, fruit, and scrambled eggs; laid out tiny jars of honey, jams, apple butter (Ha! Shane _knew_ Jackson had been hiding some extras – he always complained they never lasted past the end of fall and threatened to hide jars from Shane, but here was the _proof_ ); unwrapped multiple varieties of cheese from beeswax cloths and a braided bread Jackson had baked last night – there were even small square slices of pink cake. All of it was predictably over the top for Jackson, Shane thought fondly, though this year he’d apparently taken it upon himself to microwave a handful of pizza rolls just for Shane. Shane pretended to be watching a squirrel as he got a little misty-eyed wondering for probably the hundredth time this week what he did to deserve his boyfriend.

After finishing off a commendable portion of the food, Jackson and Jas went off while Jackson helped Jas gut the fish and Shane and Marnie packed up the mostly-empty containers. Shane glanced up at Jackson and Jas. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of watching the two of them doing their thing together. With another _what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this_ , he poured another mug of coffee for himself and Jackson, getting lost in the meditative motions for each drink that were now second nature.

“Shane,” Jas’s voice interrupted his thoughts. Shane was surprised that it had an edge of apprehensiveness.

“Yeah?” he said warily, unsure if he should be concerned.

She took a deep breath and pulled a glittery lime green notebook from her backpack, which she flipped through fervently before landing on a page and scooting closer to him.

“I’ve been learning everything I can about chickens, and I read the two books they have at the library about chickens and I’ve been watching Aunt Marnie’s chickens and helping take care of them and taking notes in here,” she said, holding up the notebook, “And Aunt Marnie can tell you how good I am at taking care of our chickens – she doesn’t even have to help anymore – well, not that much. I also wrote this report for Miss Penny’s science class.”

At this she unfolded several pages of lined paper that had been stapled together and stored in her notebook. They were crammed front and back with what Shane recognized as her scarily tidy, uniform handwriting, he noted, as she handed the papers to him. He took them from her, more than a little bewildered at this point.

“I thought about it – and it wouldn’t get in the way of my studies – look, I made this timetable,” she flipped to another page in her notebook showing a weekly schedule with color-coordinated blocks of time.

“Just tell Shane what you were telling me,” Marnie cut in encouragingly.

“I am!” Jas said sharply, looking back at Marnie with impatience. “ _Anyway,_ ” she continued pointedly (Shane made a mental note to start preparing himself for her teen years now), “Miss Penny told us our homework over the winter holiday is to write about what our new year’s resolution is, and I want to learn more about how to be a chicken farmer, because I decided I want to be a chicken farmer like you when I grow up, Shane, so can I come over sometimes and you could teach me more about chickens? I’ll be really, really, really responsible and I won’t get in your way at all, I promise!”

Shane thought his head was going to explode with love and pride for this tiny, ridiculous human.

“You mean you want to be, like, my chicken intern?” he asked, determined to take this as seriously as Jas was taking it.

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.” He pretended to think about it, unable to resist having a little fun. “Well, do you think I should interview some more candidates? To be fair? Maybe I should post something on the bulletin board that I’m looking for an assistant.”

“Okay,” Jas responded, and the way her face fell and her voice got small cut him up inside.

“No, sorry– sorry, Jas, I was just kidding. You can be my chicken intern.”

Her eyes lit up again. “I can?”

“Of course. You’re gonna do great. As long as it doesn’t get in the way of school, you hear?”

She nodded quickly. “Yes! Thank you, Shane, thank you!”

Jas bounced in place and turned to Marnie.

“He said yes!”

“I could hear, I’m right here next to you.”

Shane looked down at Jas’s report in his hands.

“I don’t know how much else I’m going to be able to teach you, though, you seem… pretty on top of things already.”

“No, it’s gonna be _great!_ ”

Marnie was giving Shane _a look_ that Shane surmised was her indication that she thought now was his chance to talk to Jas about staying over.

He let the automatic waves of panic subside into anxiety, then nerves, and then he took a deliberate breath.

“So, uh, Jas – what would you think about staying with me and Jackson on the weekends now? You could learn about chickens with us then, too, if you wanted.”

“Really? I’d get to spend the night? Every weekend? Can I put up pictures on the walls in the spare room? Does that get to be my room now?”

Shane couldn’t help smiling, despite all the emotions in the back of his head fighting to drag him back into his comfort zone.

Jackson looked at him. “I like the idea of that being your bedroom. What do you think, Shane?”

“Yeah, for sure.” Shane turned to Jas. “You really wanna do that?”

“Fuck, yeah!”

“ _Jas_ , language,” Marnie warned, and shot a disapproving look at Shane like it was his fault. It probably was. Eh, he’d never given a shit about Jas cursing and wasn’t about to start now.

“We’ll have to pick out some new wallpaper,” Jackson said.

“Yeah, the old wallpaper is _boring_.”

Shane allowed himself another smile but his head was still swimming. Jas wanted to stay with them on the weekends. And she wanted her own bedroom in the farmhouse.

Jackson slipped his hand into Shane’s as they made their way back to their place in the late afternoon, and even though it took effort, for the whole walk back, Shane only felt a sense of anticipation, excitement, and hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof... finally finished this chapter... It's sat at like 85-95% done pretty much since I posted the last chapter, I was just dragging my feet big time on writing all the connecting paragraphs 😫
> 
> But, anyway - I am still working on this fic! Hopefully the last chapter won't take quite so long to update! :)
> 
> Thank you all for reading and commenting! Always makes my day 🥰


	7. Jas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Previous chapter slightly edited in one spot to fix a little timeline error, oops).

_Fall, year eleven_

Shane always swore he’d never have a kid.

Always swore he’d never get married.

Growing up he’d always echoed the view that if you really did love someone, you didn’t need a piece of paper to prove it. And in a way, they _were_ mostly just pieces of paper at this point. He and Jackson and Jas had found their rhythm long ago. Any remnants of novelty or polite restraint between them were a distant memory.

But fuck if they weren’t about to be the best pieces of paper he’d ever have. Everything in his life had been a rocky, meandering, faltering mess. It felt good to do something by the books this time.

Shane put down the papers after shuffling through them again, checking for the dozenth time that everything was right. All they needed was their signatures and for Lewis to be their notary.

_It’s fine! Stop checking and just get ready!_

He took a few slow breaths to ground himself as he buttoned his good shirt and went out to the living room. There was Jackson (his husband! – a realization that hadn’t gotten old yet) putting breakfast on the table in front of Jas, who was wearing one of her nice dresses. Her eyes lit up when she spotted Shane walking in.

 _Fuck._ There was no way he was going to make it through the day without bawling his eyes out. (Crying in the shower this morning definitely didn’t count. Shower-cries were always freebies.)

“Shane! Can you do my hair in French braids? Jackson never does it right.”

“She’s right,” Jackson amiably agreed.

“You got your chores done? Fed the chickens?”

“Yeah, I did that already.”

“Okay, then, after your breakfast, sure thing.”

Shane sat at the table and Jackson set down a plate of bacon, eggs and toast for him and kissed the top of Shane’s head.

He looked across the table at Jas, watched her carefully construct her breakfast into a neat sandwich, and too many emotions for him to even tease apart swelled in his chest.

He hadn’t done a thing to deserve this kid, but here she was.

It made him feel fucking _old_ to think he had been a grown adult when he’d first held this _eleven-year-old_ in his arms when she was, like, seven pounds.

She’d learned to say ‘Shane’ only after ‘mama’ and ‘no’. (Well. At first it had been ‘Tay’, but they’d known what she meant). And now she was this brainy, weird-as-fuck kid who was entirely her own person with her own ideas and preferences and quirks and opinions.

She didn’t warm up to people easily, and she certainly didn’t hide it when she didn’t like someone, and yet, here she was, choosing to have Shane in her life. It was hard for him to believe that Jas – and multiple adult humans in her life – somehow trusted Shane to be enough; to be what she needed him to be.

As soon as they’d finished eating, Shane followed Jas into her bedroom.

She stopped and stood in front of her dresser, and Shane saw she was leaning over Amanda’s photo album. He joined her as she slowly flipped through the pages.

“I’ve been thinking about your parents today, too.”

Jas stopped on the last photo of her dad in in the album. It was blurred from motion, but showed Davy holding up a baby Jas, face all exaggerated, wide-eyed excitement that had her squealing with laughter. Amanda was beside them, holding the camera pointed at the three of them as a selfie. It had caught her mouth frozen in a panicked ‘oops’ realizing Davy’s arms were drifting, unable to keep holding Jas up from how weak he’d gotten at that stage, and Amanda’s hand was in the middle of flying out to support Jas.

Shane swallowed, letting the pain sit for a moment, and waited until it took its leave.

“I know you probably have a lot of feelings about today,” he said. “And I know we’ve said it before, but I just want to say again, it’s okay if you decide to change your mind, or want to do this some other time. We’ll still love you, and nothing has to change, okay?”

“I know,” she said, kicking her toe into the dresser. “I still wanna sign it with you.”

Jas handed Shane her brush and he got to work parting her hair.

“Do you think my mom and dad would be sad I’m getting adopted?” she said, in a small voice that sounded younger than eleven.

Shane thought about the answer as he separated out a strand of hair; he thought he owed her more than the dismissive ‘ _of course not!’_ that was his first impulse to supply.

“I think they would be sad they only got to help raise you for a short time. They really, really loved the shit out of you. But me and Jackson adopting you doesn’t make them any less your parents. I think they would be proud of you for making your own decision about it.”

Jas nodded, looking down at the photo album.

“Can you tell me a story about them?”

“Sure thing.”

Shane fit as many stories as he could into the time span of two French braids. Partway through, Jackson snuck in and sat behind them on Jas’s bed, quietly listening.

“Done.” Shane tied off the last elastic and handed Jas her brush back. “You’re too tall, I’m gonna have to have you sit in a chair to do this soon.”

“Maybe you’re just short,” she smirked, with the kind of evil giggle that only little girls master.

“All right, you little punk,” he poked her teasingly in the side.

“Okay, okay, come on, it’s socks and shoes time,” Jackson cut in, directed as much to Shane as to Jas. “We’re gonna have to listen to Lewis griping at us if we’re late.”

Shane waited on the porch while Jackson kneeled and lit and candle at his grandfather’s shrine, which he always did on important days, and Jas kneeled next to him for company. Then they were leaving the farm, walking through the dewy grass past the bus stop, making their way to the Community Center at a surreal pace that felt too slow and too fast at the same time.

Suddenly Jas stopped in the middle of the road.

Jackson and Shane stopped beside her.

“One time I threw a pebble at Charlie and she ran away,” Jas said, eyes dark and fists clenched as she stared down at her shoes. “And Vincent wasn’t the one that scratched your record last year. It was me.”

“Well, I’m glad you shared that,” Jackson said, “But, I’m not mad at you. And it doesn’t change anything.”

“Yeah. People fuck up. We still want to adopt you.”

Jas’s serious expression wavered, her lip trembling a little.

Jackson held out an arm. “Come here,” he said, with such a gentleness in his voice, it made Shane’s heart ache.

Jas reached out, arms wide to reach both of them. Shane tucked the folder of paperwork under his arm and moved in to give her a hug with Jackson, her face buried in the seam between them. It took Shane a minute to notice she was crying, and with that realization, tears spilled over for him, too.

He wiped his eyes. “You’re a good person, Jas. You don’t have to do anything for us to love you and want you to be part of our family. And you don’t have to sign anything to be part of our family. And that means, me and Jackson and Marnie and you. We’re a family. There isn’t anything you could do that would make us not want you to be part of it. Just ‘cause you’re you.” Shane wasn’t sure if he was making sense anymore, but he just needed her to understand he wasn’t going anywhere and neither was she. “Do you believe me?”

She raised her head and looked at both of them and nodded silently before resting it down again with a small sniffle. Jackson rubbed circles on her back until she let go of them and took a long breath.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Jackson asked.

“Making us late from crying.”

“Nah, we’re not even late yet. I built in extra crying time, so I’m glad somebody used it but – _it was mostly for Shane_ ,” Jackson said, dropping to a stage whisper at the end.

Jas giggled.

“Look, I’ve cried twice today already, and I guarantee I’m gonna cry again. It’s just gonna be a crying day, all right? We’re just gonna cry a lot and hug a lot and drink a lot of water, okay?”

Jas smiled and nodded. “Okay.”

“You want to keep heading over?” Jackson said.

“Yeah.”

And then they were standing around a table in the Community Center, joined by Lewis, Marnie, and Jackson’s mom, who’d taken the train down to Pelican Town that morning for the occasion.

They were laid side by side: all the birth certificates and IDs; his and Jackson’s marriage certificate; the deed to what was now _their_ farm; the adoption paperwork to be signed.

Something inside Shane was pointing at the table with all these papers, shouting, _Look! Here’s proof! We are a family, we’re all choosing to be here; we’re choosing each other. Here’s the proof. (There are people I care about.) (There are people who care about me.) (There are some things I haven’t fucked up)._

And it didn’t even feel like that needed a ‘yet’.

Then the pens came out.

 _I, , am ten years of age or older and consent to_ _this adoption._

The blanks were filled and stamps applied without hesitation. Shane cried like a baby, of course – and Jas looked appropriately embarrassed by him.

Back at Marnie’s house, a celebratory potluck lunch brought out just about everyone in town at some point or other. Shane kept an eye out, but Jas was all bounce and smiles the whole afternoon, getting up to all the expected levels of mischief with Vincent, while also periodically acquiescing to the adults’ attempts at small talk. He was sure the entire spectrum of human feeling would hit them all at some point or other in the near future, but, that would come when it came.

Shane, Jackson, and Jas set out again at dusk, and it was a peaceful feeling knowing they were headed in for their first meal as a hundred-percent-government-certified family. It was an even better feeling that it felt completely normal and mundane.

He was letting himself have the stupid, cheesy, marriage and a kid and a house on a farm life he’d always written off for himself. The messy, Shane version of it anyway, which he wouldn’t change for the world. Maybe it hadn’t come easy, and he wasn’t naïve enough to think it would always be easy from here on out, or last forever. But it was here right now. And now was okay.

No. Fuck that, actually.

Now was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got ‘Gwendolyn’ by Bad Luck. in my head so often when I was writing this that I finally caved and made it the title reference. Shameless plug time, but Bad Luck. is very near and dear to me and got me through 2020. Do yourself a favor and listen to them.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!


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